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How The Military Squanders Its Management Talent

Tim Kane thinks the U.S. military produces great leaders but then paralyzes them with its bureaucracy.

A product of the military system himself, Kane graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and worked as an air force intelligence officer during two tours of duty in Asia. He also earned a Ph.D. in economics at U.C. San Diego and is now the chief economist at the conservative Hudson Institute. In his new book, Bleeding Talent: How the U.S. Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why it’s Time for a Revolution, he argues that the military should get rid of its inefficient, lockstep promotion bureaucracy and replace it with a more entrepreneurial structure. Under the current system, some of the most talented officers resign in frustration because, he writes, “the military personnel system—every aspect of it—is nearly blind to merit.”

The root of the problem, he says, is a 1980 law called the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act, or DOPMA, which lays out exactly how leaders in all the services should be promoted. The law includes a progression track with strict rules and timetables. Compensation has nothing to do with merit, assignments have little to do with officers’ abilities and evaluations fail to give useful feedback or skills assessments. He describes officers always being promoted from second to first lieutenant and from lieutenant to captain, and often to major, no questions asked. “One would have to commit a felony or two to hinder his or her chances for promotion,” he writes.

There are also strict seniority rules for promotion to higher office like colonel or general, which require 20 years and 22 years, respectively. Then after just two years at the rank of general, an officer can retire with a full pension. The military never allows “lateral entry” from outside its forces, even among former officers who have taken time away from the service. If enlistees show extraordinary leadership potential, they must still abide by the lockstep timetable.

Kane believes this system stifles and ultimately chases away the most talented. Officially there are performance evaluations within the military, but in practice they tend to give high marks to mediocre performers, he writes. It’s also very tough to specialize within the system, since officers are matched with open positions using those empty performance evaluations, from a central human resources office in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Kane wants to chuck this entire bureaucracy and replace it with a system that is much closer to the civilian world of promotions and assignments. The military should get rid of its strict seniority rules, making it possible for talented young officers to apply for challenging senior posts. There is nothing wrong, he says, with a colonel of 31 supervising a major who is 42.

The service should also open the officer ranks to lateral hires, including enlistees who show talent and former officers who may have done a stint in the private sector. He favors greater specialization and the option to remain a captain or a major for a longer period than the lockstep system allows. Many officers leave the service because they don’t want to give up commanding troops to hold a higher rank. Commanders, instead of the military’s central HR office, should have the power and authority to fill open slots, he says. The military should also make it easier to lay off officers who are performing poorly. He wants evaluations to be more meaningful and to weed out poor performers.

Kane also floats a couple of suggestions that go beyond hiring and promotion. He suggests that former soldiers should be able to use GI Bill money as start-up loans instead of for education. Though he acknowledges this could prompt more people to leave the military, he believes that, coupled with a policy that lets officers re-enter the service, it could foster outstanding skill building.

Though Kane makes many compelling points in the book, it’s tough to imagine his vision becoming reality. He does not favor incremental reform. A centralized bureaucracy can never work well, he insists. The system is broken, he maintains, and should be completely overhauled. But in his last chapter, Kane admits that the reality is that “the Pentagon bureaucracy will outlast memories of me and this book.” Still, he provokes a useful discussion and exposes some entrenched problems in the military’s system for managing leaders.

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You need to take an even higher level view of the military. We have three basic missions … fighting, flying, and sailing. Unfortunately, the four arms of the service all have overlapping responsibilities for these missions. This creates a huge expense in terms of all of the redundant command structures and sub-optimization of procurement.

While I agree totally with the HR issues in this article, a total reorganization of the armed forces would yield significant savings with a more effective command and force structure!

how is the overlapping of branches redundant? Young I may be (16) but I certainly am I military buff

the Marines are flexible highly mobile combined arms expeditionary force so of course they need their own airwing and such but they also have plenty of different equipment such as the LAV-25 compared to the stryker or bradly compared to the amtrac.

so are you saying the Airforce should ALL the planes the Navy should have ALL the warships or the Army should have ALL the tanks and heavily armored vehicles? sorry but I feel that would seriously complicate things

Here’s a case study of what I am referring to. The command and control elements for an action such as Desert Storm were muddled due to the fact that the overlapping services reported into different chains of command & communications channels. Marine tanks were fighting adjacent to Army tanks, but they were talking to different operational commanders. Equip the soldiers with the equipment necessary for their mission, but operate them under one unified command structure!

Here’s another. Why are Navy Seals doing inland missions rather than Delta Force or the Rangers? Even the Air Force has its own “special operations” force. Why have 4 or more special forces commands when we should have one … with multiple teams specialized for unique mission profiles!

If you’ve ever run a sizable operation, you would realize the benefits of simplicity of command. If you are a taxpayer, you should appreciate the benefits of operational efficiency and elimination of layers of bureaucracy!

Its common for services to do joint operations. If army and marine tanks where going under different chains of command chances are they had different objectives which needed their own attention and regardless the final word was from schwarzkopf who commanded all coalition forces during desert storm. Just like Marine units being command by Army general Westmorlen during Vietnam

while branches often work together in join operations sometimes they work alone what if during desert storm marine/army units fell under purely army chain of command and they ended up slitting off attacking different objectives separated by miles it would extremely hectic for those in charge

as for your statement on special operations. First off ALL U.S. special forces fall under USSOCOM in which all special forces from every branch coordinate together. During operation Eagle Claw an attempt to rescue hostages several special forces units each under different command engaged and the operation was a disaster for that exact reason.

SEAL stands for Sea,Air and Land they are highly adaptable to any given situation yes some special duties will inevitably overlap to a certain degree but all server a unique purpose.

Airforce Tactical Air control Party (TACTP) serve a special purpose of coordinating local air power, while Combat Controllers establish landing zones and other similar duties often assigned to units like the SEALs and Rangers.

I agree with Mr. Kane. My experience with the U.S. military is consistent with his points. Although he focuses on the officer/management side of the military, I want to add emphasis to his point that there is also a problem on the enlisted side. Particularly, in special operations, I know many enlisted men that left special operations training for reasons other than its physical difficulty. They are then later forced into the most basic enlisted positions even though they went through an extensive selection process to become an special operations candidate. Some enlisted men in this group even meet or exceed the qualifications for a standard commissioned officer but are often not provided with the opportunity to maximize their abilities.

Thank you for this interesting, detailed comment. It’s fascinating to me that an enlisted soldier could go through extensive training in one area and then have to repeat that basic training if they switch specialties.

EagleOneOne and Psumba80 both make some very good points that I have seen firsthand.

My dad is a retired U.S. Navy Diver and UDT Frogman, and I know exactly what EagleOneOne is referring to in his comments because I have seen it happen on multiple occasions.

In fact, my family is 4 generations military to include: 3 U.S. Navy, 1 U.S. Air Force & 1 U.S. Marine Corps – 1 commissioned O-6 retired & 4 staff non-commissioned officers covering the time period from the Vietnam War to present day. We are all college educated, with my dad having the most education 2 Bachelor’s & 2 Master’s degrees, as well as being a retired civilian police officer.

I know and recognize good leadership when I see it, and all the branches do a superb job of creating great leaders. However, where the military fails is by strangle holding that potential and many times not allowing us to be the leaders that we were molded to be.

It is my personal opinion that the only reason the attrition rate is not higher in today’s military is because service members know how difficult it is to successfully make it on the outside in today’s economy. With that said I think the day will come when the economy has improved enough that the men & women of the U.S. Armed Forces are going to feel comfortable enough to venture outside those military gates and seek employment elsewhere. When that happens we are going to see the attrition rate grow.

This brings me to my point. Anyone who has ever served in any theater already knows that we are very short-manned and have been for the last two-plus decades.

If the Dept. of Defense intends to proactively curb this before manpower shortages further degrade our capabilities, then we need to take a serious and objective look at not only our leadership but other issues as well. Issues like funding, fraud, waste & abuse, diversity, sexual harassment/abuse, and mandatory retirement upon reaching 20 years.

Words like accountability, diversity, honor courage & commitment should actually mean more to us then just words on a piece of paper. If it did then why is it that many of us have seen some service members punished under the UCMJ while others have had their transgressions swept under the rug?

If you think that I am off-base here then you are either living in your barracks room after working hours and never leaving or you are lying to yourself.

Likewise, the dividing line between officer and enlisted is also diminishing in many commands that I have worked for or with and would venture to say is happening elsewhere. Today’s military has thousands of undergraduate/graduate college-educated men & women among both its officer and enlisted ranks. Gone are the days when most enlisted were simply educated at the high school level. Many choose to stay enlisted or otherwise don’t meet some criteria for one reason or another. These people need to be recognized, challenged and given more opportunities in leadership roles because today many are not.

Lastly, I want to point out that I think the current administration at the Oval Office is on the right track. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 is a step in the right direction but there is a lot more work to be done if it is to really fix what is broken in today’s military.

It is often said in “our world” that leadership starts at the top. I believe that leadership should start at both the top and bottom and meet somewhere in the middle. I also believe that we should be given the opportunity to do our jobs without fear of reprisal because some reporter with an agenda failed to verify all his or her facts before running a story on the AP Wire. But that is another topic for a completely different day.